The most dominant problem at this University, one might argue, is that of self-segregation and symbolic racism.
I'm going to attempt to look at the issue of self-segregation on this campus from a different perspective.
In my African-American studies class last semester, a student asked "if you all (black people) would attend a white culture center?" This is where I say that in fact blacks have been integrated into the "White Culture Center" all their lives simply because they have had to do so. America is not a melting pot. In other words, no collard greens, red beans and rice, and sushi has actually been cooked in that pot yet. The problem is, not everyone is interested in making this country a melting pot.
We as a society are given a choice as to what direction we will go. Many of us succumb to the artificial pressures of labels and where we are supposed to be placed because society perceives us better there.
Accordingly, despite popular theory, I think minorities have a done a significant job of helping to mix the pot of diversity more than one might think. I suspect that the same African-Americans who the majority says are cold and uninterested in cooperating are the same group from the 1960s who marched for integration in schools such as Central High School in Arkansas.
But yet, we are seen as distant and wrapped up in our own black culture -- although it is blacks themselves who have had to change the status quo.
As a more contemporary example of such movements by blacks and other minorities, we can look to life here at UNC. Minorities allegedly separate themselves into their own social groups at Lenoir, at parties and even at Kenan Stadium.
While there is some truth to this, people forget that these are the same people who chose to attend this predominantly white institution (read White Culture Center), who go to classes that are often 90 percent Caucasian and who are taught by a faculty that is mostly white. Anyone still think minorities keep to themselves?
How about the fact that many minorities are continually reminded of the grim past as well as the still unforgiving present at many institutions across the country today (i.e. the mocking of African Americans at an Auburn University fraternity)? But these students still make the sacrifice to attend such schools. People complain that minorities have too many of their own groups on campus -- why don't they integrate? However, no one has a complaint about the majority white fraternity row and the Carolina Review, for example.
